


Just

by katykrash



Category: Dogfight (1991)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-03
Updated: 2018-08-03
Packaged: 2019-06-21 02:23:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15547512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katykrash/pseuds/katykrash
Summary: Eddie's return.





	Just

And then she is coming toward me. Passing tables with full sugar bowls as her true self. Her wise eyes. Her scent of geraniums, like mamaw’s front porch. Then, suddenly, her own arms. Rose.

Don't fucking know. Goddamn well know. Let her, let myself. Just like last time.

Not like last time.

Rose, Rose. Rose. Rose.

She'll know.

***

Eddie. Eddie. He lived!

But no. He also died.

Oh, my God, his eyes! His eyes.

All these years—I don’t know anything. Eddie.

I will not let go!

Eddie. What are we going to do?

What can I do?

***

The tune on the truck radio changes as it chugs away. He doesn’t know the song.

He can’t let go. She smells and feels like everything safe. Nothing is safe.

“Eddie,” Rose rasps in that voice, running her neat white hands down his arms as she lowers herself. He realizes she has been on tiptoes for a time. She draws him deeper inside the cafe, back into safety, with a tilt of her head. After a few steps her gaze flicks to his gimpy leg.

They sit. At some point he realizes he is staring at the sugar bowl.

She is still holding his forearms.

Couldn’t we just, he suddenly remembers. And all he wants, again, is to be with her. Why he came back this way, the only way he could come. Couldn’t we? Just?

***

“Eddie. All I have right now is some pastries about to go stale…I was closing tonight for…never mind. But I can make fresh coffee. You want some coffee?”

She sees him rouse himself a bit and maybe nod.

“‘Yeah, let me get that. It’s right over here, OK?” She rises, but keeps her eyes on him. She waits for Eddie to look at her. “OK?”

He nods again. He starts to fold in on himself.

“Eddie." She has learned not to cover her nerves with babble, but then she does, anyway, as she works the smaller percolator by rote.

“Well, here I am. My mom retired to Marin County with a customer who’d been in love with her for years, who knew? And I did sing on that stage—your song, even—but I ended up getting more involved in...helping people.” She cannot tell him yet about the Peace Corps.

She brings the mug and sits down next to him this time, instead of across.

***

That song. “Rose." He twists and meets her eyes.

And that’s it. She takes his hand and says, with a firm chin, “We’ll go up. Let me lock up.”

Fuck. How is he going to get up those stairs?

However the fuck Rose helps him get up those stairs, is how.

“Here we are,” she proclaims unnecessarily. The changes are enough that he knows it is her place now, but he is not able to note and describe the transformation. She plops onto a sofa that only exists because he’s seeing her land on it. She toes her clogs onto the floor. She settles, tucking her legs up under her, and raises her arms to him.

He pulls off his boots and crumples into her.

***

Here he is again, his head against her belly, just right, she thinks, raking her fingers through what is now more hair, but different hair than she’d once imagined. No, this is his hair, and she doesn’t see him going much further, though she suspects he’s growing his sideburns. How long has he been stateside?

“Back three days. Greyhound from Dego. Got in this morning,” Eddie mumbles. He can read her thoughts?

As his arm shifts around her hip, his folded cuff draws back and something raw and colorful catches her eye. She uses a fingertip to reveal what she doesn’t want to know.

She cranes down and kisses the top of Eddie’s head, resting her hand near his bees.

“He didn’t cheat at anything, after that time.”

“No,” she agrees.

***

“Myowl!” He opens his eyes to a grey tabby cat looking above him expectantly. It is dusk, and Rose chuckles.

“He wants his dinner,” she says, shifting to rise while gently cradling his head. “C’mon, Jim.”

The cat seems to smirk at him before following her. He wonders what happened to the dog.

***

As she works the can opener, she hears Eddie let out a harsh sound. Then a guffaw, maybe a wheeze, and then a laugh she'd forgotten, probably for good reasons.

By the time she’s bending to the dish, he has made his way to the doorframe. It doesn’t quite show in his eyes, but he is amused.

“You named your cat Jim Swain?”

She grins. “Yeah. Yeah, I absofuckinglutely did.”

Eddie barks out another laugh and then starts to shake and somehow she knows the sobs will be next.

***

He sinks to the floor. Rose joins him, shoulder to shoulder. The cat laps its food while he weeps.

He opens his eyes after a few heaving breaths and sees her hand before them, palm up. He rests his palm on hers and watches their fingers curl in unison.

She inhales sharply, and he shifts to see her face. She smiles again—oh, he hadn’t forgotten those dimples, then—and angles herself to push his hair across his forehead with her other hand. Rose’s lips are cool on his brow, then warm at his ear.

“Couldn’t we just...?” she whispers.

Yes, he nods quickly and hopefully, and Rose rests her head on his shoulder, never letting go.

**Author's Note:**

> Dedicated to other Rose & Eddie fans. Here's the song that plays in my final scenes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2xODjbfYw8


End file.
